Offshoring the Nation's water

When the ten regional water authorities in England and Wales were floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989, a shift in ownership inevitably followed from the privatization of household water. The public listing of shares in water companies initially created a wide distribution of ownership across the UK population, with preference given to those who paid the water bills. Controls were put in place to ensure that no one individual or company could monopolize the shareholdings, with the UK government retaining a ‘golden share’ precisely to avoid such an outcome. Once those shares were relinquished by the government in 1994, however, the ownership of the nation’s water started to shift abroad, with foreign investors largely attracted by the low risk, stable returns on offer. Some two decades on, with seven of the ten water authorities now in foreign ownership, the contrast from the idea of a British shareholding public that drove the early UK privatisations could not be greater

The everyday construction of value: A Canadian investment fund, Chilean water infrastructure, and financial subordination

Infrastructure in several economies in the Global South has rapidly undergone financialization, aided and abetted by governments opening-up their infrastructure assets to global institutional investors in search of stable, predictable revenue streams. This account of financialization could be the end of the story were it not for the fact that Christophers (2015) and others have shown that institutional investors are not simply in the game of ‘finding’ value or ‘harvesting it’ from obliging states, rather they actively construct it. What often catches the eye, however, are the more overt forms of financial engineering (Ashton et al., 2012), whereas what tends to go unnoticed are the ways in which infrastructure assets are routinely ‘worked’ to generate value over time. Here, we draw attention to a slower-paced financialization of infrastructure assets where, following Chiapello (2015, 2020), investors are engaged in a continual process of evaluation and revaluation of their assets to add value over and above prevailing benchmarks. Taking the example of Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) and its extensive investments in Chilean water infrastructure, this article considers how a global investment fund draws on financial practices developed in the advanced economies to add value to long term infrastructure assets in the Global South. Such practices, we argue, enact a routine form of financial subordination which does not match the familiar image of wholly subservient and dominated dependent economies. Rather, the power asymmetries involved equate less to a zero-sum game and more to a game where the benefits are unequally shared between asset managers in the Global North and states in the Global South, where effectively the latter cooperate in their own submission in ways that are not always acknowledged as such

Participate or Else!: The Effect of Participation in Decision-Making in Meetings on Employee Engagement

In the scope of organizational life, few events are as universal or as influential as workplace meetings. In this study, we focused our attention on better understanding the relationship between meetings processes and post-meeting outcomes. More specifically, we investigated the relationship between participation in decision-making in meetings (PDM) and employee engagement, after controlling for the impact of meeting size and other demographic variables. We examined this from a theoretical perspective, providing particular consideration to the underlying basis of social exchange theory and norms of reciprocity at work in this relationship. Using a sample of working adults in the United States who were employees of organizations and attend meetings regularly, we found that PDM in meetings is related to employee engagement, even after controlling for job level, meeting size, tenure, and age. Additionally, perceived supervisor support moderates the relationship between PDM in meetings and employee engagement, such that the positive relationship is stronger when perceived supervisor support is high. Furthermore, meeting load also moderates the relationship between PDM in meetings and employee engagement, such that the positive relationship is stronger when meeting load is high. This study is unique in its examination of how characteristics of the meeting setting may influence post-meeting outcomes such as employee engagement. Taken together, the findings suggest that PDM is associated with employee engagement, under certain conditions that are discussed

The Impact of Premeeting Talk on Group Performance

Interactions that occur prior to a meeting constitute premeeting talk (PMT). Of the different PMT types, research suggests that small talk PMT is especially meaningful. In this study, meeting participants’ interactions both prior to and during the meeting were video recorded, coded into sense units, and classified by coding schemes. This study investigated the influence of small talk PMT on both perceived and objective group performances, as well as the potential for positive socioemotional and problem-focused statements to serve as mediators. The results supported the mediating influence of both types of statements for only perceived performance. Our results suggest that a group-level babble effect can take place in meetings, such that groups who engage in more extensive discussion tend to believe that they achieved high performance, but objective ratings do not support this belief. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations of the study, and future research opportunities are discussed

UNSWIRF: A Tunable Imaging Spectrometer for the Near-Infrared

We describe the specifications, characteristics, calibration, and analysis of data from the University of New South Wales Infrared Fabry-Perot (UNSWIRF) etalon. UNSWIRF is a near-infrared tunable imaging spectrometer, used primarily in conjunction with IRIS on the AAT, but suitable for use as a visitor instrument at other telescopes. The etalon delivers a resolving power in excess of 4000 (corresponding to a velocity resolution ~75 km/s), and allows imaging of fields up to 100" in diameter on the AAT at any wavelength between 1.5 and 2.4 microns for which suitable blocking filters are available.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, uses psfig.sty and html.sty (included). To appear in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australi

Deconstructing the “Resting” State: Exploring the Temporal Dynamics of Frontal Alpha Asymmetry as an Endophenotype for Depression

Asymmetry in frontal electrocortical alpha-band (8–13 Hz) activity recorded during resting situations (i.e., in absence of a specific task) has been investigated in relation to emotion and depression for over 30 years. This asymmetry reflects an aspect of endogenous cortical dynamics that is stable over repeated measurements and that may serve as an endophenotype for mood or other psychiatric disorders. In nearly all of this research, EEG activity is averaged across several minutes, obscuring transient dynamics that unfold on the scale of milliseconds to seconds. Such dynamic states may ultimately have greater value in linking brain activity to surface EEG asymmetry, thus improving its status as an endophenotype for depression. Here we introduce novel metrics for characterizing frontal alpha asymmetry that provide a more in-depth neurodynamical understanding of recurrent endogenous cortical processes during the resting-state. The metrics are based on transient “bursts” of asymmetry that occur frequently during the resting-state. In a sample of 306 young adults, 143 with a lifetime diagnosis of major depressive disorder (62 currently symptomatic), three questions were addressed: (1) How do novel peri-burst metrics of dynamic asymmetry compare to conventional fast-Fourier transform-based metrics? (2) Do peri-burst metrics adequately differentiate depressed from non-depressed participants? and, (3) what EEG dynamics surround the asymmetry bursts? Peri-burst metrics correlated with traditional measures of asymmetry, and were sensitive to both current and past episodes of major depression. Moreover, asymmetry bursts were characterized by a transient lateralized alpha suppression that is highly consistent in phase across bursts, and a concurrent contralateral transient alpha enhancement that is less tightly phase-locked across bursts. This approach opens new possibilities for investigating rapid cortical dynamics during resting-state EEG

Fun in the workplace : a review and expanded theoretical perspective

Since the turn of the century, a growing body of research has systemically examined the role of fun in the workplace. In general, the extant body of research has demonstrated that fun in the workplace has a beneficial impact for individuals and organizations, but some evidence has been mixed. To help advance research in this area, the aims of this paper are two-fold. The first aim is to review previous research on fun in the workplace and identify gaps in the literature to provide direction for future work. The second aim is to offer a theoretical framework that helps explain how individuals may interpret fun in the workplace and how it may be most beneficial. Drawing on the notion that fun in the workplace is in the eye of the beholder, our proposed framework provides a more nuanced understanding of the temporal processes and contextual factors that explain how individuals appraise and ultimately benefit from fun

Meeting Madness: Counterproductive Meeting Behaviors and Personality Traits

When used effectively, workplace meetings serve as an invaluable opportunity for coworkers to achieve organizational objectives. However, meetings are often regarded as inefficient, unproductive, and a waste of time. Due to meeting attendee frustration, there can be detrimental impact on employee wellbeing. In this paper, we examine the impact of a specific type of meeting behavior, counterproductive meeting behaviors (CMBs), which include non-constructive criticism and complaints on perceptions of meeting effectiveness. Additionally, we explore the potential moderating influence of personality characteristics on this relationship. While meeting leaders may take great efforts in designing meetings based on good meeting practices supported by research, meeting outcomes could be largely influenced by the individual personality characteristics of meeting attendees. This research is aimed at developing a greater understanding of how individual differences, namely personality traits, play a role in meeting interactions and outcomes. Respondents completed a survey that measured CMBs, personality characteristics, and meeting effectiveness. Our findings indicate CMBs are negatively related to perceived meeting effectiveness. Additionally, the negative relationship was stronger for individuals who possess higher levels of agreeableness and stronger for individuals possessing lower levels of extraversion. We discuss implications for managers and meeting attendees